TURA: The much talked about story of slain GNLA chief Sohan D Shira having left behind hidden two powerful light machine guns has turned out to be true with the last one being recovered by East Garo Hills police on Sunday afternoon.
Prior to this recovery, police teams had retrieved another LMG from a jungle hideout, one month back. The LMG is a powerful weapon that can take down a low flying chopper and even stop a troop carrier in its tracks and was used by Sohan as propaganda in social media to lure young recruits.
Search teams from the district police were informed about the presence of the weapons in a hideout at Bawegre village, across Simsang river. Together with the villagers a search was carried out leading to the recovery of the weapons which had been concealed in waterproof bags in a jungle.
Police found the 7.62 calibre LMG along with two additional barrels, a G3 rifle commonly used by troops from Pakistan and Bangladesh, four rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), a .303 calibre LMG barrel and 90 live rounds of ammunition.
The seized items were once the personal weapons of the GNLA chief who use to frequently brandish them before his cadres and on social media. It is believed that both the LMGs were smuggled from the illegal arms market in Nagaland under the guidance of then LAEF chief Peter Marak and Sohan Shira.
With the search for the two LMGs over, police are now trying to trace out another powerful weapon-Heavy Machine Gun (HMG) which is believed to have been brought into Garo Hills by the ULFA and handed over to the GNLA chief.
Since last year, a spate of surrenders by senior cadres of GNLA had led to the handing over of multiple rounds of the HMG ammunition.
“Senior commanders including Hedeo during his surrender had brought over several rounds of the giant sized HMG ammunition but not the weapon. We believe it is concealed somewhere in the jungles of East Garo Hills,” said East Garo Hills SP Ringrang T G Momin.
The HMG, operated with a tripod and installed on the back of a truck, is a common sight in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The ULFA is known to have a handful of these guns in its main camps in Myanmar.